In England a number of wells are credited with the power of curing sterility. "Child's Well," in Oxford, "by the holyness of the chapleynes successively serving there, had vertue to make women that were barren to bring forth children."[1]
I do not think it is going too far to look upon "wishing-wells" as having been originally wells where barrenness could be cured.
Another report bearing upon the association of wells and birth may be inserted here. Among certain tribes in India, on the 40th day after the birth of a boy, the impurity of the mother ceases, "but several rites must first be performed. There is the 'Kua-Jhanka' or peeping into the well, which is identical with the Subhachani among the Hindoos."[2]
Among the Deshasht Brahmans of Bombay, the father is purified after a birth in his family by jumping into a well with all his clothes on; after this he is allowed to drop honey and butter into the child's mouth as a sign of initiation into the caste.[3]
We have unearthed, then, quite a number of close links between children and water, especially in wells. But the tale is not yet complete.
Let us glance at a water-spirit, who, we may suppose, is fond of children, since he has so much to do with them. What sort of a creature is he?
Sometimes he is a horse, at other times he is a man with a shaggy beard, or a siren or kelpie singing with the sweetness of some other world songs which lure the rapt listener to destruction.[4] But in addition to these we often find him assuming forms which connect him with babies or children.
- ↑ Hope, l.c., p. 122.
- ↑ Risley, H. H., Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Calcutta, 1891, p. 211.
- ↑ Crooke, l.c., p. 60.
- ↑ Grimm, l.c., vol. ii., pp. 491, 492.
